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I send you this viâ Marseilles, in order that you may get for me, as soon as possible, three cheap small double-barrelled guns, and send them overland to Ternate, to be ready for my next year’s campaign to New Guinea. They are absolutely necessary for me, as I have now with me Charles Allen, who went out with me, and we must have a double quantity of tools to work with. He is now starting from N. Ceram and Mysole, while I go to E. Ceram and Kè. I expect to get some grand collections yet to send you. I am now packing up my Ceram and Amboyna collections to send you. In birds they are miserably poor--only one being, I think, new, and very interesting from being a second species of Celebes’ genus Basilornis. The few specimens of Tanysiptera were only obtained by two men going out for a month after nothing else; and the beautiful Lorius domicella was equally scarce, though domesticated specimens are abundant. There is scarcely anything else of interest but the unique Platycercus amboinensis (not found in Amboyna, however), which will show that my Dorey Bird was a distinct species."

ENDNOTES

1. Editor Charles H. Smith’s Note: Third of three extracts from letters on collecting dated 26 November 1859, Awaiya, Ceram, 31 December 1859, Passo, Amboyna, and 14 February 1860, Passo. Printed in the Ibis issue of July 1860.